Help for first ever Beef Wellington for Father's Day

My husband always wanted me to make/try beef Wellington after seeing it on Gordon Ramsey's show. And i wanted to treat him on Father's Day. I never made it before! I have 4 individual fillets in my freezer I got at costco a few weeks back. I will not be making my own puff pastry. I looked up the Gordon Ramsey recipe but it calls for prosciutto instead of pate and my husband wants to try the classic pate version. Anyway - can I just use chicken livers mashed and seasoned instead of pate? Or do I have to buy pate? How do I avoid the puff pastry bottom from getting soggy? He likes his meat rare - puff pastry takes like 35 minutes won't the steak overcook? And do you suggest a sauce? I'm sorry for so many questions but I want to make this great for him as he has been a super extra great father lately.

I made it New Years for the first time, it was fine if not great. SOME people's mileage may vary but that's their loss ;-)

I sort of made it because I had a whole filet plus a tub of fancy pate in the freezer, although I mixed in extra pureed mushrooms and sherry, so that helped. My only mistake was using the phyllo dough that was also there instead of getting any kind of puff pastry instead.

I have made them a few times. I did not think that they were very hard to make. Most of the work is done ahead of time. I used a recipe from fine cooking. You sear the meat, wrap it and then freeze. Because it is frozen, the puff pastry gets nicely cooked while keeping the meat rare/med-rare. The only time that the bottom crust got a bit soggy was when I rolled the dough a little too thick. It was still good. The following link is with a spinach, mushroom and blue cheese filling but I do not know any reason that you could not use pate instead.

Yes, fully assembled. The time I made it that it was really good I froze for a day or two. You just need to freeze it long enough to get the meat frozen so it doe not overcook while the puff pastry is getting nice and brown and puffy. I told my husband that I responded to this thread because someone said it was hard and he asked me to make it for his birthday! I do understand the idea that one should not try out a new recipe for an important event but really did I not get married in order to experiment on him? He is one happy guinea pin and I his.

Buy the pate. If you have a Trader Joe's near you, they have a selection. If you want a sauce, I love Tyler Florence's green peppercorn sauce. I like his whole recipe, actually, but he uses prosciutto instead of pate.

If you go to eGullet.com, you will find a wealth of information about preparing beef wellington (single and whole tenderloins). I'm a vegetarian, and following the advice on eGullet, I've made many successful beef wellingtons.

I made it for the first time for a Christmas dinner, and it turned out fine. If you are a confident cook, can read a recipe and understand the processes, yours will be fine.

Don't be afraid to try different ingredients to make it your own. I don't like mushrooms, so since I was making individual Wellingtons I made my own "duxelle" substitute with onions and shallots (Mr. Shaja got the standard mushroom duxelles). I did use prosciutto, and it was okay but I thought its flavor didn't really complement the beef's and I don't think I would again.